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Obviative (abbreviated ) third person is a grammatical-person marking that distinguishes a non-salient (obviative) third-person referent from a more salient (proximate) third-person referent in a given discourse context. The obviative is sometimes referred to as the "fourth person".〔Kibort, Anna. "Person." Grammatical Features. 7 January 2008. () Retrieved on 2009-10-25.〕 == Comparison with other grammatical-person marking systems == In English and other European languages, the principal means of distinguishing between multiple third-person referents is using gender or (lack of) reflexive. Thus, in "she saw him" it is clear that there are two third persons because they are of different genders; in "she saw her" it is clear that there are two third persons because otherwise one would say "she saw herself". However, "she saw her mother" is ambiguous: it could mean she saw her own mother, or it could mean she saw someone else's mother. An obviative/proximate system has a different way of distinguishing between multiple third-person referents. When there is more than one third person named in a sentence or discourse context, the most important, salient, or topical is marked as "proximate" and any other, less salient entities are marked as "obviative." Subsequent sentences that refer to previously-named entities with pronouns or verbal inflections can then use the proximate and obviative references that have already been established in order to distinguish between the two.〔 For example, in the sentence "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," there are two third-person referents, the fox and the dog. So one of them has to be proximate and the other one has to be obviative, depending on which one the speaker considers more central to the story. If the fox is the more important one, the sentence might look something like "the quick brown fox-PROX jumped-PROX>OBV the lazy dog-OBV," where PROX>OBV is verbal inflection indicating a proximate subject acting on an obviative object. In that case, a subsequent sentence "and then PROX went-PROX away" would mean that the ''fox'' went away. On the other hand, if the dog is the more important one, the sentence might look something like "the quick brown fox-OBV jumped-OBV>PROX the lazy dog-PROX," where OBV>PROX is verbal inflection indicating an obviative subject acting on a proximate object. In that case, the same subsequent sentence "and then PROX went-PROX away" would mean instead that the ''dog'' went away. By contrast, an equivalent subsequent sentence in English, such as "and then he went away," would not necessarily indicate whether "he" is the fox or the dog. An analogy that has been used to explain obviation is that the proximate is the entity in the "spotlight" while any other, obviative entities are out of the spotlight or "hangers-on." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Obviative」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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